Towamensing, the township I call home, is holding an electronics recycling event this weekend. I took in a whole piles of stuff—computer monitors, old tape players, and some equipment the purpose of which I did not know.
Many of the items had been donated for a yard sale we held last month to raise money for the headquarters of the Community Outreach Association. Let me give you a heads-up. Old electronic devices and computer parts NEVER sell at yard sales.
Among the items donated was a VCR player. The recycling guys unloaded everything but that; they told me the recycling fee for that was $30. I told them, “just leave it on the truck; I’ll throw it in the woods.”
Everybody laughed, and then I got out $30 and recycled the damn thing. I am curious, however, about how many people would pay that fee and how many would just throw it over a guardrail.
When a customer buys a car battery, he or she pays a recycling deposit. Almost all car batteries are now recycled. I have read that in Germany car buyers pay a similar fee for cars. In America recycling is “external” to the cost of most items, including TVs, computers, and just about everything else. Those items tend to end up in informal dumps or along a rural road.
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